Tag: comics

In this segment on Create Sci-Fi, I talk about the value of concept art for a DIY Sci-Fi Production. I use examples from my web series ‘Galactic Galaxy”. Many of the builds and filmmaking tutorials on this channel were developed during the creation process of Galactic Galaxy.

Be sure to watch my video channel for more Sci-Fi filmmaking giddy-up.

In the Galactic Galaxy season one finale the Dar Kuzar prepares to capture Queen Sevena in his Cage Of Darkness. Pam, Fen, and Xerro have other plans. A heroic battle and daring rescue utilizing the last known disco core are Queen Sevena’s only hope. “YOU FOOLS, DID YOU THINK I DIDN’T PLAN FOR EVERY EVENTUALITY!”

Featuring Jeff Lewis who played the beloved character Vork in Felicia Day’s “The Guild” & Julia Morizawa who plays Dr. Bright from the wildly popular podcast “The Bright Sessions.” The writing team included Charles Horn, writer on the first “Robot Chicken: Star Wars” special.

GALACTIC GALAXY is an irreverent space saga filled with action, suspense, and a healthy dose of the absurd. It is the story of a Space Werewolf named Fen who teams up with a Space Trucker named Pam to rob an illegal space disco in order to fulfill his destiny and save the Galaxy.

In Galactic Galaxy episode five the Dar Kuzar goes to extremes to speak with Queen Sevena. Fen and Pam are interrogated by the hard-nosed Captain Aimeswell of the Space Police. “IF WE DON’T GET TO HEPTA SEVEN BY TOMORROW THE WHOLE GALAXY IS ZRUCKED!”

Featuring Jeff Lewis who played the beloved character Vork in Felicia Day’s “The Guild” & Julia Morizawa who plays Dr. Bright from the wildly popular podcast “The Bright Sessions.” The writing team included Charles Horn, writer on the first “Robot Chicken: Star Wars” special.

GALACTIC GALAXY is an irreverent space saga filled with action, suspense, and a healthy dose of the absurd. It is the story of a Space Werewolf named Fen who teams up with a Space Trucker named Pam to rob an illegal space disco in order to fulfill his destiny and save the Galaxy.

In Galactic Galaxy episode four Fen, Pam & Tom plan a heist of an illegal space disco. The club owner Ringle is a no good space pirate and lecherous bastard. “THE LAST KNOW CORE IS BEING USED TO POWER STATION 54, THE MOST HEDONISTIC DISCO IN THE GALAXY.”

Featuring Jeff Lewis who played the beloved character Vork in Felicia Day’s “The Guild” & Julia Morizawa who plays Dr. Bright from the wildly popular podcast “The Bright Sessions.” The writing team included Charles Horn, writer on the first “Robot Chicken: Star Wars” special.

GALACTIC GALAXY is an irreverent space saga filled with action, suspense, and a healthy dose of the absurd. It is the story of a Space Werewolf named Fen who teams up with a Space Trucker named Pam to rob an illegal space disco in order to fulfill his destiny and save the Galaxy.

In Galactic Galaxy episode three Fen begins his training to defeat the Dar Kuzar, Pam is not convinced he has what it takes. The Dar Kuzar orders the Tree Of life vaporized. Fen meets the Celestial Queen Sevena. “THE INTERPLANETARY FEDERATION FEMALE FORCE DOES REMAIN IMPARTIAL IN SUCH MATTERS.”

Featuring Jeff Lewis who played the beloved character Vork in Felicia Day’s “The Guild” & Julia Morizawa who plays Dr. Bright from the wildly popular podcast “The Bright Sessions.” The writing team included Charles Horn, writer on the first “Robot Chicken: Star Wars” special.

GALACTIC GALAXY is an irreverent space saga filled with action, suspense, and a healthy dose of the absurd. It is the story of a Space Werewolf named Fen who teams up with a Space Trucker named Pam to rob an illegal space disco in order to fulfill his destiny and save the Galaxy.

In Galactic Galaxy episode two Pam & Fen agree to help the locals deal with the dreaded Trotta Beast in exchange for some much-needed space fuel. The Dar Kuzar is not pleased at all with his minions progress on his Cage of Darkness. “ALRIGHT FINE, I MEAN, HOW BAD CAN A SPACE BEAST BE?”

Featuring Jeff Lewis who played the beloved character Vork in Felicia Day’s “The Guild” & Julia Morizawa who plays Dr. Bright from the wildly popular podcast “The Bright Sessions.” The writing team included Charles Horn, writer on the first “Robot Chicken: Star Wars” special.

GALACTIC GALAXY is an irreverent space saga filled with action, suspense, and a healthy dose of the absurd. It is the story of a Space Werewolf named Fen who teams up with a Space Trucker named Pam to rob an illegal space disco in order to fulfill his destiny and save the Galaxy.

In Galactic Galaxy episode one Space Werewolf Fen, Pam Redcup and her agoraphobic mechanic Tom must escape the evil Dar Kuzar who has become enraged with his button technicians. “THE JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND PARSECS BEGINS WITH WITH A SINGLE PARSEC”

Featuring Jeff Lewis who played the beloved character Vork in Felicia Day’s “The Guild” & Julia Morizawa who plays Dr. Bright from the wildly popular podcast “The Bright Sessions.” The writing team included Charles Horn, writer on the first “Robot Chicken: Star Wars” special.

GALACTIC GALAXY is an irreverent space saga filled with action, suspense, and a healthy dose of the absurd. It is the story of a Space Werewolf named Fen who teams up with a Space Trucker named Pam to rob an illegal space disco in order to fulfill his destiny and save the Galaxy.

Galactic Galaxy, created by Anthony Ferraro, is a hilarious, action-packed adventure in space.

“I finally achieved all my goals in life…in one show: playing a sci-fi villain who snorts lines, in a series that looks like a comic book.”-Jeff Lewis, Actor The Guild

Galactic Galaxy is an irreverent sci-fi comedy web series like no other. This rotoscope style space odyssey, in the spirit of the cult classic 80’s film Heavy Metal, was meticulously crafted by creator and director Anthony Ferraro.

The talented cast features Jeff Lewis (Vork in Felicia Day’s The Guild) and Julia Morizawa (Dr. Bright from The Bright Sessions). The writing team includes Charles Horn (Robot Chicken, Star Wars Special) who said about the series “Anthony has a unique visual style that I haven’t seen before.” -Charles Horn, Writer Robot Chicken, Star Wars Special

Galactic Galaxy follows the epic journey of Fen, a space werewolf who teams up with non-nonsense space trucker Pam Redcup to rob an illegal space disco and fulfill his destiny to save the galaxy. What is particularly distinctive about Galactic Galaxy is the graphic novel look of its video production. By combining live action performances with 3D sets and landscapes the show evokes the comics of the 70s and early 80s. Galactic Galaxy is a love letter to the sci-fi saga genre, filled with action, suspense, and a healthy dose of the absurd.

“Anthony’s creative abilities have brought to life a style not often seen in the digital series world,” -Suzette Laqua, Executive Director of Vancouver Web Fest

“I love that Anthony is tapping into the sci-fi fandom without being cliche and of course, adding humor into the mix is always a welcome change from overly serious dystopian dramas!” -Sarah Penna, COO of Frolic Media & Co-Founder of Big Frame

Episode one of Galactic Galaxy will be released on YouTube on June 14, 2018 :

This week I want to talk about the look of my web series Galactic Galaxy. What really makes Galactic Galaxy unique and frankly me proud is the graphic novel treatment. Most often it is compared to The 80’s epic cartoon Heavy Metal. Which is a happy accident or maybe not I actually saw that movie in the theatres? I’m pretty sure we snuck out of The Great Muppet Caper and into another time and space… I digress. Many of my SciFi influences for the show are from The early 80’s Heavy Metal Comics or Metal Hurlant when it was first released and featured Mobius and my favorite Philippe Druillett, so though it was unintentional, it certainly makes sense.

I did lots of research on how to technically turn live action into illustration, the most obvious was Rotoscoping. Rotoscoping is an animation technique used by animators to trace over footage, frame by frame. The most influential for me was 1977 Wizards by Ralph Bakshi but that was very basic and more of a Broll filler. But like Heavy Metal an indispensable influence. I would not exist without those movies. More recently were the beautiful movies from Richard Linklater, Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly which are beautiful. Bob Sabiston is the man responsible for that work and it is stunning. So much so that it is the other end of the spectrum, the time money and sheer artistry behind that method was well beyond my means

I used to say back to the drawing board but what is more accurate these days is, back down the google rabbit hole. I started looking into DIY desktop solutions from great resources like Red Giant and Video Co-Pilot. Shout out to Andrew Kramer, once you start to learn about SciFi DIY you can probably trace 80% of it to his tutorials. I was not able to find exactly what I needed so I started to cobble together bits and pieces from various resources until I came up with something that might work in theory. After some initial tests, I was able to come up with something that would work for my budget and not compromise my vision.

The basic process I came up with was a combination of online tutorials, some basic software and a year of trial and error. In essence, I Shoot on green screen and then key out the live action (remove the green). Then I apply a series of filters that turn the actors into an illustration. To add depth and movement a virtual film camera is introduced via Adobe After Effects to combine the 2D live action with a 3D background. To really sell this look I add very subtle camera moves and a few other subtle tweaks with film grain and lens flares.

In the end, it is a lot of work for a primarily DIY production. Many long hours were put into the creation of this show and I cannot wait to show you the end result. Be sure to subscribe and follow my video channel for more Sci-Fi filmmaking How To.

This week I want to talk about the proof of concept short I made for My web series Galactic Galaxy. Once I decided on the unique “tooned” look of the series I knew I had to figure out the ins and outs of how exactly it was going to work? I went through the original script and selected three scenes that showcased the most characters and major locations. The thought is this way I can get a very good idea of how to make this work and what it was going to look like.

On a very basic level in my apartment, I did a super basic, very rough test of the skull warrior. I shot very rough poorly lit footage. A worst case example if you will. I did a test of the process I planned to use and for a test, it looked pretty decent. I was relieved, this could work. From this, I was motivated and excited.

I went to work and did a casting for the scene and was planning on just doing it quickly and inexpensively as a test. Well, the good news was I did, in fact, figure out how the process would work and that in fact, it would work. However, that test footage took one year to finish. It was so exciting but so much to work out. But once I had the systems in place and the kinks ironed out it went much quicker with the web series. Still took one year but that was for six times more content.

As an afterthought, I filmed the Queen character doing a monologue I wrote to give some exposition to the random scenes so I could show it at festivals as a short film, and use it for promotional material. I was fortunate enough to get into the Dances With Films Festival which resulted in a Screening at the Historic Manns Chinese Theatre which was both exciting and motivating. the short also won a silver medal at The Stann Lee Comic Con. Not bad for a proof of concept film with no plot.

Motivated by the interest shown in the proof of concept film, I was more excited than ever to get to work on the series. A valuable function of that was early short film was I knew the original script was not going to work and some of the characters while wonderfully acted were not working quite right within the story. Also as I mentioned I love the process and I was looking forward to refining my vision. From the short, it was clear I would have to go back to the drawing board and start the dreaded … rewrite. Be sure to subscribe and follow my video channel for more Sci-Fi filmmaking How To.